Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2016
On behalf of the Government, I concur with the Presiding Officer in her praise of Adam Ingram for his remarkable work as a member of the Scottish Parliament, a minister and a constituency member. I well remember his substantial work on children and young people, in particular. At the time, I was leader of a council, and I know that many of the interventions that Adam made were important and significant for the life chances of young people in my area. I agree that his leaving will be a loss to Parliament.
I thank the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee for its work on an important issue, and I thank everyone who provided the expert evidence that enabled the committee to produce an informative and balanced report on the closure of the Forth road bridge in December 2015. At the outset, I echo the committee’s view that the response by all bridge staff to the closure—in mid-winter, let us not forget—was nothing short of remarkable. I am sure that I speak for all members when I say that.
I will take this opportunity to comment on key points in the committee’s report and to provide Parliament with further reflections on the information that was supplied to the committee.
There are wholly legitimate concerns about whether the defect could have been spotted sooner and, if so, repaired. There were no warnings that there was a defect at that part of the structure. Between 2001 and May 2015 FETA carried out 23 separate inspections of the truss end links. The unique nature of those structures means that identification of common defects is disseminated quickly around the globe among bridge experts.
As the experts confirmed to the committee, when defects appear they are typically accompanied either by wear and tear due to stresses that gradually become visible, by noise, which reverberates through the structure, or by both. With no evidence emerging from the biannual inspections, no indication of sudden failures from elsewhere in the world and none of the typical indicators present, no defect revealed itself to FETA’s engineering staff or, latterly, to Amey’s, until December 2015.
I agree with the committee’s conclusion that the defect was wholly unforeseen and with the expert opinion that it was not possible to have foreseen the particular failure. Quite rightly, the committee has focused its attention on the particular defect that led to the bridge closure.
It is also crucial, however, for Parliament to understand why FETA invested significant time, money and effort not on the truss end links but on other major maintenance and investigations in the period before and after the comprehensive spending review in 2011. FETA identified that certain key tasks necessitated action; that stemmed from its own risk hierarchy, years of accumulated professional experience, an intimate and detailed understanding of the bridge, and its own enhanced bespoke inspection regime.
The original proposal to replace the truss end link was not at the top of FETA’s priorities; in fact, it was only fifth in the list. The FETA board and its experienced professional management and engineering advisers all agreed on the priorities, which included the main cable, dehumidification, acoustic monitoring and £3.2 million on anchorage investigations, as well as the £2 million to replace cable band bolts. It is in that context that FETA decided not to proceed with a consultancy that might have unearthed a potential defect and might have led to actual works in a part of the end of the truss end links that never actually failed. Remember: it was the other end of the truss end link that was being looked at.
Would FETA have acted differently in how it progressed the truss end link scheme if more funding had been available? From the evidence that I have seen and heard, I do not believe that it would. FETA had other, higher priorities, and the later engineering reports revealed no overstresses or concerns with the truss end link member itself.